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A few years ago, along with Maria, Colin and Anuj, I was awarded the SPE International Distinguished Service Award. Oliver had nominated me and Tom had supported me, probably along with others whom I have not been made aware of. Indeed, the candidates did not have access to their nomination files and I was barely aware of the process itself. I had once successfully nominated somebody for a Regional Service Award, and that was my only shameful contribution to such program.

As an engineer, I always focussed on engineering and my service to SPE had the obsessional motivation of making engineers and engineering material better and more accessible. Of course, being awarded the Distinguished Service Award was a recognition of a lot of efforts put into building a petroleum engineering community in the places I have been, in the communities I joined, and in Switzerland in particular. I thought: “well, it is heartening to know that some people took the initiative to recognize that effort!” I thanked them in due course. I booked my flight to ATCE, and prepared a speech that Cynthia recorded, over the phone, a month or so before the event… but the speech was too long for the strict format imposed by the award ceremony. Upon recording, I had to shorten the message and rush through it. Of course, it ended up too short, and of course that was frustrating. When receiving such award, you first feel like… why me? And along comes the pressure for justification; so you must explain what you do, why you do it, the way you do it and your vision and convictions that push you to do it. Volunteering is not anecdotal, every one of us has a story about it, about the motivation to serve, and wants to share that story with those who are opened to listening. I wished the award ceremony would have been the place for an inspired and possibly inspiring speech; it wasn’t. 

Also, as an engineer, I wanted to be a good one, one who forces the respect of his peers; rising to the level of William Rankine or Henri Darcy, a fellow Burgundian, must be so thrilling. I have to admit that I was not good enough an engineer, and that there are much better ones around. Was it right though to receive a Distinguished Service Award as a lesson of technical humility? Certainly not, and I learnt later that this was mere misplaced egocentrism!

A few years later, I was offered to sit in the committee evaluating the candidates for that same SPE International Distinguished Service Award and in charge of submitting the successful names to the SPE Board of Directors. Cynthia patiently educated me along a few other judges on the process. Shortly after came the list and files of the nominated candidates… and that was an enlightenment.

After reviewing a number of files, I realized how many good, committed and extraordinary people belong to SPE. The previous question of “why me” became more acute than ever, but that was history now. I was so proud of belonging to that community that could display such abundance of exceptional individuals. Also, I realized that many other talented members were out there, stealth, because nobody had bothered taken the effort of nominating them. But believe me, this community is worth belonging to!

Because of so many exceptional candidates, the nomination process becomes highly competitive, hence the time and effort that a nominator must put into promoting a candidate. I realized what Oliver had gone through to push my case to completion. I could not believe that somebody had taken the time and the energy to doing something of that magnitude for me. I went to Oliver, thanked him again, but my thanks were now different, educated. I asked him that time to tell me more about the amount of work that he had put in. Oliver eventually confessed that it had been a hell of a work. That he had never worked so much for somebody (for free), and he added: “but every minute spent on it was my pleasure, and I would do it again, because you deserve it so much”. That was one of my most moving moment. I would had never imagined that somebody could do that for me; the nominators are the real heroes and should be given awards, mine belongs in large part to Oliver.

The quality of the nomination file is indeed key to success. It is certainly a good idea to assemble all the material, recommendation letters, etc., before filing in. It gives your nominee more chances, and saves precious time to the committee examining the candidates. As a matter of fact, there are very good candidates that could benefit from much better applications. It could be worth taking an extra year to properly assemble convincing material rather than pushing a candidate through before all documents are available.

Then, among the top candidates, only a limited number can be selected. It is a tough choice to select from a short list of exceptional individuals who have done incredible things for SPE. If you don’t make it to the award ceremony, there is nothing to worry about, you are exceptional anyway. Of course, awards do not change our commitment; of course, awards are not part of our motivation and will not impact our engagement; and of course, good people are good with and without awards. But receiving tokens of appreciations are rare and always a wonderful experience.

As judges, we try our best to be impartial at ranking the candidates; but how? Promoting SPE in Houston, Aberdeen or Rincón de Los Sauces can hardly be compared. Being part of a big corporation that will support your SPE volunteering activity, or working in a small organisation that sees it as a distraction makes so much difference in what you can achieve. Competing at 30 or at 60 for the same award largely based on achievements that time may dictate is cruel; I remember Victoria, running a section that had become a one-woman band, Fabrice trying to revive SPE in some remote place of West Africa, Cristina presiding over the destiny of the Swiss section where the closure of Addax Petroleum and lack of sponsors is putting the finance in peril. These people are also my heroes, they might not comply with the Distinguished Service Award requirements, but they deserve so much!